sf says...

"OMG, our beloved Emperor is gone! (sorta') But don't worry: the Democrats are fanning the flames of crazy, so it's just a matter of time before they run things again."

Thursday, March 24

An outside-the-box idea

Following the bombing in Belgium by Islamic monsters that murdered 34 and maimed another 250 or so, I think it's time to roll out some new ideas for how to put an end to this. Because clearly, the emperor's line about them being a "JV team" and that his singularly brilliant efforts have "contained" them, or "have them on the run" has proven to be utter bullshit. (I know, we're all just shocked that the emperor would be wrong about something.)

Frankly I'm for dropping tactical nukes on any ISIS positions found, but I realize no one else in the U.S. is ready to do that so we'll shelve that for now. For now try this: Ally with the Russians.

Russia has suffered more civilian dead from Islamic terrorists than France, Belgium and Germany combined. Among other atrocities, in 2004 terrorists took over a school in Beslan and killed at least 186 school kids. They have good equipment and a well-disciplined military. Our two nations should be allies in the fight against the emperor's so-called "JV team."

A look at how Russian operations differ from ours is instructive: For the last six months or so in and around Syria, both the USAF and Russian air force were flying missions to roll back ISIS. Last I read both the Russians and Americans had flown roughly the same number of missions. The Russians had actually dropped bombs on something like 95% of their missions, but the USAF had only dropped on something like 5 percent of theirs.

Yes, non-career AF ground crewmen report that 95% of the time our aircraft brought all their weapons back to the home base, because they couldn't get permission from the chain of command to actually, you know, do something offensive.

Why so shy? You won't find an active-duty officer who'll say, cuz none of 'em wants to sacrifice their careers, but the most logical explanation is that the orders came down from higher up the chain of command. And the generals in the Pentagon take their orders from the White House--in this case to 'go easy.'

I also realize that Russia has been defending the Assad regime in Syria, and that Assad's shown that he's perfectly willing to bomb and gas fellow Syrians. Yes, that's a serious problem. But I don't think we should let that keep us from allying with the Russians to interdict ISIS.

Of course this arrangement won't happen as long as the emperor is in power, nor if--as seems frighteningly likely--Hillary assumes the throne next. But it strikes me as a very good idea.

The rioters were throwing bottles and rocks at the cops, who didn't have riot helmets or batons. Several cops were hit and required stitches. Rioters also sprayed unknown liquids on several cops, possibly some homemade version of pepper spray, or possibly worse.

Now here's the odd thing: Several of the commenters noted that they were *ordered* by superiors NOT to wear helmets (which also have face shields). This seems odd, to say the least. And if true it would indicate that whoever made that decision--presumably the top officials in the CPD but possibly mayor Rahm Emmanuel himself--are putting political imagery ahead of safety. That is, they presumably knew that having cops show up at the...um..."demonstration" in riot helmets and batons would have shown Americans across the country what was really happening.

It would have increased support for Trump, so it's not unreasonable to think the Dem leadership might have wanted to avoid that .

Seems to me some enterprising reporter might want to run this down. Were any cops ordered not to wear helmets? If so, how many cops got such an order? Which precincts? Who gave the order?

Of course having some experience with life in Democrat-run states I don't for a momentexpect to get any *honest* answers. Career pressure--as in, "Would you like to keep your job, officer?"--will ensure that while you might have two dozen cops in the local bar one evening swearing they personally got that order, the next day no one will go on the record. It would be a career-ending move.

On second thought, forget it. A majority of votes--whether cast by individual voters or otherwise--will elect the lying Hillary as president. It's what we deserve. The emperor's third term, as it were.

Saturday, March 19

Victimism has become the highest goal of the Left

In many parts of the U.S. the idea of individual virtues is ridiculed. It's been replaced by "victimism," cleverly named "social justice," which has now become the highest value held by your "elite" betters.

The law has become a weapon, used by the Left to bludgeon conservatives. Not surprisingly, once people recognize this, they begin to view the
whole system with contempt.

Each "victim" gets to talk about their feelings for fifteen minutes
before crybullying for someone’s head.

Marxism was built on this same feeling: You have more than I do, so it must be because you've inherited your wealth, or stolen it, or cheated me out of mine. Thus the only fair remedy is for me to re-claim what you must have stolen.

Of course Marxism cloaked this greed and envy in elaborate terms, making it sound like a science.

Today the left's ideas can
be condensed to “[____] upsets me.” The implicit goal is that when they take over, no one will be allowed to upset you, because the Left will be in charge of everything. And of course who is allowed to say what upsets them? Why, the victim, of course. And the government will take over from there.

We can either have a virtuous society of free men and women, or we can
have a government whose main goal and purpose is to take from the industrious and give to the lazy, under the gauzy, amorphous notion of "You have more than I do--I want it. And I'm entitled to it."
H/T Gates of Vienna.

Chelsea Clinton: 'Not only does my mom vow to not deport any illegal
aliens, she wants 'em to be able to sign up for
Obamacare too

During the Democrat debate carried on Univision two weeks ago, both Hillary and Bernie not only agreed with Jorge
Ramos that it was immoral to even have a border. But Hillary went even farther,
vowing she wouldn't deport a single illegal unless he was guilty of serious non-immigration crimes.

Audience member: "Is she planning on expanding Obamacare--the ACA--to include people who are not fully documented?
Because when you get ill, your illness will not ask you if you are a
permanent resident or not."

Chelsea Clinton: "It's such an important question. Thank you for supporting my mom. My mom has very strong feelings that we must push as quickly as possible for comprehensive immigration reform....she was one of the original supporters and sponsors of the
DREAM Act. She does not believe that while we are working towards
comprehensive immigration reform we should make people wait, like the
families you are talking about. Which is why she thinks it's so
important to extend the Affordable Care Act to people who are living and
working here, regardless of immigration status, regardless of
citizenship status."

So not only does Hillary demand that we grant citizenship to everyone who manages to come across our border, according to Chelsea her mom also demands that we give them free health care.

And remember, if you object to either of those goals the only possible reason is that you're a raaacist. Can't be that you just don't think the U.S. should take on the burden of supporting every poor person in
the world who can walk across our undefended border.

Update: Hillary Rodham has declared the southern border secure, so there's no need for any additional border security.

Friday, March 18

Last November on the campus of the U of California-Merced, a young muslim dressed in black, carrying an Islamist-themed
manifesto and a printed ISIS flag in his backpack stabbed four people. The manifesto was even annotated with reminders to pray to Allah between stabbings.

Two days ago your emperor's FBI wrapped up its investigation. And their conclusion?

The emperor's Department of Justice will carefully avoiding stating the obvious, which is
that an individual who stabs unarmed students in the name of ISIS is a
terrorist.

But to your emperor's lackeys it's simply impossible to know what motivated the guy.

In a series of press conferences in the days following the attack both local and federal law enforcement
repeatedly claimed that the man attacked because he'd been excluded from a study group. However, that story contradicted statements his
roommate gave Merced County Sheriff’s detectives. The roommate
told detectives Mohammed was “a loner” and “an extreme Muslim,” who
threatened to kill another student if he touched his prayer rug, and who
dressed all in black before leaving his dorm to try to kill his fellow
students.

Both the FBI and campus police have refused to provide copies of Mohammed’s manifesto and the photocopied
ISIS flag to news organizations, saying the investigation was ongoing.

But don't worry, citizen: Your emperor is keeping the country safe from terrorists. Really. Just ask any Democrat. And Hillary will be just as good.

At least there's one European head of state who seems to get it

At least one national leader seems to understand:

In speeches on Hungary’s National Day, prime minister Viktor Orbán has
lashed out at European leaders for inviting the “destruction of Europe”
by causing the migrant crisis and has rejected European Union (EU) plans
to resolve the situation.

Orbán criticised EU politicians who
blindly welcomed all migrants to Europe, who in turn brought “crime and
terror” to Europe's nations. “We must restore
the unity of Europe. The future of Europe is at stake. Shall we be slaves, or men set free, that is the question.”

Thursday, March 17

DHS sends permanent-resident green cards to people who didn’t apply for them

Your emperor's Department of Homeland Security has a division called Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). We now learn from DHS Inspector General John Roth that CIS has been sending permanent residency cards to the wrong addresses. Even
to people who have filed change-of-address forms. As the Washington Post noted:

…officials
acknowledge there is “no accurate means of identifying the exact number
of potentially hundreds of cards sent to incorrect addresses for cases
processed in ELIS.”As
seems to be the case repeatedly in government lately, the blame goes to
the computer systems, as if they are beyond [human] control.... But that’s apparently the case at CIS.The
report says the cards were sent erroneously “due to a system
limitation” that prevented humans from changing the addresses. Even when
green-card holders requested a change of address, employees could not
update the system.

In
other words, the computer system was badly designed in the first place.

Is anyone surprised? Look at who's sitting in the oval office. Yep, the emperor.

As Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) likes to sarcastically comment, “The country’s in the best of hands.”

Translation: The U.S. as we knew it is pretty much dead. Hope that's what you wanted, cuz it's sure as hell the truth.

Obama's lackeys release illegal who killed an American girl, despite cops asking ICE to detain him

The emperor's lackeys keep on following his orders to the letter--specifically, to release and refuse to deport any illegal immigrant who accidentally happens to be arrested. And refuse to cooperate with local law enforcement if they try to apprehend illegals for serious crimes.

The illegal was momentarily arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Shortly afterward Omaha police asked ICE to detain him pursuant to charging him with vehicular homicide and drunk driving.

ICE said, in effect, "You local cops can piss off," and released the guy on a paltry $5,000 bail. (I'd add "astonishingly, released the guy" but no one reading this will be astonished, or even mildly surprised, at this bit of traitorous, anti-American crap from Obozo and company. I mean really, are you even a bit surprised?)

Now the story has finally broken out of the local Omaha paper, and last week the U.S. senate (otherwise a totally useless body) asked ICE director Sarah Saldana to explain why her agents ignored the detainer request and instead released the killer.

Saldana gave an explanation that Democrats would have called a lie when Bush was president, claiming ICE ignored the detainer request because the
victim, Sarah Root, "had not passed away” at the time the illegal alien
drunk driver bailed out of jail. This is bullshit because she died within hours, while the illegal wasn't bailed out until the next day. Also, of course, ICE didn't bother checking with Omaha law enforcement before they released the bastard, so they couldn't have known whether the victim was alive or dead.

Go ahead, senators: Ask they lying bitch who made the call to the hospital, and when, and who they spoke with. You're lying, lying, lying, and you and every rational adult knows it.

What's stunning is that you lied so brazenly, about a matter so easy to verify as false. It's almost like you knew your emperor wouldn't care if you brazenly lied, because he knows he's invulnerable.

The killer has now vanished, of course.

Unfortunately the emperor is still in the White House.

May God help us.

This is your government in the era of the emperor. This outcome was totally predictable by anyone other than a liberal/Democrat. Be glad it wasn't your wife or daughter.

An interesting tweet promises riots if Trump wins; Is it authentic?

And closely following the instructions of your emperor, the following tweet appears today under the byline of "Tef Poe." No idea whether it's a hoax.

Interesting, if authentic. And if authentic, we can expect the emperor--who has professed himself shocked by the violence-inciting rhetoric by Trump--to thoroughly denounce this kind of talk by his own supporters.

Yeah, I'll take all bets on whether the emperor will say a single word about this statement. He won't, because he's not really against violence by his own people. He just wants to use the natural aversion to violence to tar the GOP front-runner.

Consistency? Nah, thanks, we're liberals.

UPDATE: Poe deleted his tweet and then claimed that he never made the comments. Like most technically naive people, he believed deleting the tweet made it un-happen. Surprise, asshole! The tweet is archived-- here among other places.

Now Poe is whining about “slander”--presumably implying he'll sue anyone who says he made the original tweet. Talk crap, then play the victim when you
get challenged on your crap. Same thing EVERY time with libs, Dems and social justice
warriors.

Remember when the emperor-to-be said *this*...?

You've all forgotten, but just a few months before the 2008 election your emperor said this:

He showed his true colors, his true thoughts about the opposition. But NOW he's saying something totally different for the cameras: 'I'm shocked, shocked, at all this hateful rhetoric coming from the Republicans! Our political system has no place for this kind of incitement!'

I think most rational people would be amazed at how anyone could say "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun!" and then just 8 years later claim to be shocked when someone from the other side uses roughly the same language. But then, he's a marxist Democrat, so consistency isn't to be expected.

Wednesday, March 16

North Korea sentences American college student to 15 years...for stealing a banner

That's 15 years at "hard labor," too. Guy is 21 years old and definitely wins the stupid idiot of the year award. First, what U.S. college student in their right mind would go to North Korea in the first place?

And the notion of stealing a hotel banner...as a "trophy." Pure insanity! Then putting it in his suitcase, when anyone who knows fuck-all about communist countries--or totalitarian regimes of any sort, for that matter--knows they check your bags on the way out as well as in.

Then a friend identified the missing puzzle piece: The reason this guy did such a supremely stupid thing is that not one U.S. college or high school student in a thousand knows anything about communism. Liberals never believed communism was a threat to begin with, and even when I was in high school a lifetime ago none of my teachers ever suggested it was. But when you do atomic-bomb drills in the hall during school hours it doesn't take too long to put the pieces together.

Then when the former Soviet Union split up into a dozen or so individual states, every single liberal in the U.S.--including every school teacher--none of whom believed communism was ever a threat before--now redoubled their efforts to revise history to remove every hint that communism might have ever killed 100 million people in the 20th century (not including WW2).

Thus barely 20 years after the former Soviet Union seemingly crumbled we have the two Democrat candidates for U.S. president running as "socialist" and "slightly less socialist"--both of which are euphemisms for communism.

So no surprise that this guy didn't realize he was doing something really, really stupid. His parents and teachers and political leaders didn't teach him basic survival skills in the big, unfriendly world. In fact quite the opposite: the adults around him--including every single college administrator--have gone to great lengths to insulate all these "special snowflakes" from the slightest hint of stress. "Safe spaces," anyone? Punishing other students for "micro-aggressions"? Oh yeah. Great survival skills.

Oh wait...what am I thinking? The mainstream newspapers and TV networks have already identified the only threat to America, and it isn't communism. It's...Donald Trump.

"Virtue-signalling"

"Virtue-signaling" is a term you should know, because it explains SO much about how the "elites" behave, both here and around the world.

It's what politicians and other so-called "elites" do to show their peers--as well as us ordinary, hard-working, tax-paying folks--that they're enlightened and think all the right thoughts. This is intended to prompt other elites to conclude that any policies being pushed by the signaller must be similarly faaabulous and enlightened.

So for example, European politicians wanted to show their peers how enlightened they were, by inviting millions of middle-easterners and north-Africans into their countries. They push this policy by claiming--falsely--that "most" of the refugees are women and children, when in fact the overwhelming majority (80 percent or so) are 20-to-30-year-old males.

The fact that a big percentage of the so-called refugees have shown an eagerness to assault European girls and women, and to steal anything available, and to collect money from host governments, is irrelevant to the virtue-signalling pols. In fact they're even willing to kick their own citizens out of their apartments to make room for the immigrants.

Some virtue, eh?

But hey, your security as a citizen is trivial compared to the ability of pols to feel virtuous.

But it's okay, citizen, cuz he claims to have a great defense: He says congress didn't explicitly pass a law barring him from doing that.

And of course his state-run media have repeatedly told you--without a shred of evidence--that he's a "constitutional scholar," so he must have special insight on that document, right?

At the center of the dispute is whether the State
Department had the authority to shift funds from an existing, congressionally-authorized,
program. The Obama administration – without
congressional approval -- has committed the U.S. to contributing $3
billion to the fund.

Along with Gardner, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., maintains Congress
has not allocated any funding for what he calls the “international
climate change slush fund” and has in fact “prohibited the transfer of
funds to create new programs.”

The State Department acknowledges that paying half a billion bucks to the U.N. wasn't approved by Congress – but State (thus, implicitly, Obama) goes on to argue that it nevertheless had the authority to give taxpayer cash to the U.N. because...wait for it...Congress didn't explicitly prohibit giving the money to the U.N. fund.

Of course that's not how the Constitution says the process is supposed to work, but that's never stopped your emperor before.

Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a week ago, Deputy
Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom
told the committee the funds were diverted from the department’s
Economic Support Fund -- which provides economic funding to foreign
countries -- to the GCF after a full review by department lawyers.

Didja catch that, citizen? The lawyers--very objectively and fairly, no doubt--allegedly decided that the Constitution doesn't mean what it explicitly says. Which is: "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law."

Some gutsy reporter might ask the emperor if he thinks Article I Section 9 of the Constitution is the law of the U.S. My guess is no reporter will ever ask, of course. Gotta protect the Preciousss and the Dem party at all costs.

State Department spokeswoman Katherine Pfaff also
confirmed that the source of the funding was the economic
fund, but could not say from which exact program the money came. And she directly addressed the GOP senators’ charge: “Did Congress authorize the Green Climate Fund? No.”

Now, with the first half-billion gone, the administration has asked congress for another $750 million for the GCF in its fiscal 2017 budget. Which is how the Constitution says the emperor is supposed to do things. But of course the emperor gets a free pass on the first half a billion bucks, I guess cuz he's half-black, or the great uniter, or some other weird bullshit.

Higginbottom also insisted that neither State nor the administration were required even to notify Congress about the transfer from the Economic Support Fund. Cuz the money was just, y'know, transferred from one account to the other before being spent. So that makes it, like, totally fine.

"Experts" friendly to the emperor carried water for him by claiming that because Congress did not
include specific language barring giving money to the GCF, it was okay. They claim this
disputecould have been avoided if only Congress had simply bothered to include a specific prohibition on spending for the climate fund.

Of course you think I must be kidding--that no intelligent adult could seriously claim that the only way congress could bar a crazed emperor from spending money congress never authorized would be for congress to specifically pass a law barring that exact expenditure. It's insane, in part because there's no way to know what the emperor might be planning to do. But here's H. Sterling Burnett, a
senior fellow with the Heartland Institute:

There was not a specific line item in the budget prohibiting
spending on the GCF.... it would not be an issue if
Congress had explicitly prohibited it.

Okay, sure, that's just a non-government "expert." The administration itself would never make such an obviously insane claim. Oh wait, here's Obama press secretary Josh
Earnest last December:

There are no restrictions in our ability to
make good on the president’s promise to contribute to the Green Climate
Fund.

Gardner and Barrasso also were signatories to a letter
sent last year to Obama asserting the deal reached at a United Nations
climate change conference in Paris, including the $100 billion-a-year
Green Climate Fund, would have to be submitted to Congress and approved before the administration could pay
any money to the fund.

Cute, huh. Insane perversion and violation of what used to be called the "supreme law of the land." But that's what your Constitution-shredding emperor has brought you. Hope you're enjoying it.

Oh, and I hope your kids and grandkids appreciate your support of his wasted spending. Cuz you sure as hell saddled 'em with the debt, eh?

Popular black TV show lets Hillary blame Republican governor for Flint water disaster

Wanna see how seamlessly the mainstream media works to elect the Democrat candidate? During a rare moment of crossing a TV screen during the day I happened to catch Steve Harvey devoting an entire show to the water troubles of Flint Michigan.

Now, there's no doubt that the city's water problem is ghastly. It's also a verifiable fact that the decision to change the source of the town's water from Lake Huron to the Flint River was made by the city council. Which was entirely composed of...members of the Democratic party.

Of course no political party ever wants to admit that any of their people made a mistake, and it's pretty normal to try to blame someone else for disastrous decisions. So Dems have cunningly blamed the problem on...the Republican state governor. Who had nothing at all to do with the decision to change the city's water supply. But no matter: It's a great way to shift blame, and the lo-info voter buys it.

The show led with clips of 'town hall' meetings of hysterical citizens screaming that Governor Snyder should be in jail, or should be impeached, or should resign. (Did we mention the governor is a Republican?) Then they ran a taped interview between Harvey and the eternally lying Hillary, in which she said the water situation "is not a mistake, not an oversight."

The implication--clearly being pushed by both Hillary and Harvey's network--is crystal clear: That the contamination of the city's water was due to a deliberate decision by the Republican governor. Obviously untrue, but Harvey's audience ate it up.

Kinda reminds me of how Venezuela's socialist prezzy has repeatedly blamed that country's lack of such basics as milk, toilet paper, coffee and cooking oil on those meddling yankees.

Sunday, March 13

Illegal accused of killing 5 in Kansas had been deported but returned, again illegally

Last week an illegal alien suspected of killing five people was arrested after an extensive manhunt.

Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino is accused of murdering four men on March 7th at his neighbor’s home in Kansas City, Kan. He was also wanted for the shooting death of a fifth man in another county.

Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that Serrano-Vitorino was in the U.S. illegally, and had previously entered the U.S. illegally before 2004. He was deported back to Mexico in 2004 but had re-entered the U.S. again--again illegally.

According to Kansas authorities he was being held at the Overland Park, Kansas Municipal Court on Sept. 14. His fingerprinting reportedly generated an ICE detainer, but ICE seems to have sent the detainer to another agency instead of to the Overland Park Municipal Court.”

The Department of Homeland Security said Serrano-Vitorino was released from custody without ICE being notified. This seems to be a deliberate effort to introduce ambiguity to cover their ass: Are they claiming they were never notified that Overland Park had the illegal in jail, or that they weren't notified that Kansas authorities were releasing the guy? The former contradicts the information from Kansas authorities.

ICE later admitted it mistakenly sent the detainer order to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, which didn't have the suspect in custody.

So...alien enters the U.S. illegally, is deported, comes back again and apparently kills 5. If ICE had sent the detainer to the right court he might not have been released.

Saturday, March 12

MoveOn supporters force cancellation of Trump rally in Chicago

Following story from the Associated Press, datelined March 11th at 11:52pm. I'm posting this the next day at 5pm.

If this had been Trump supporters forcing Hillary to cancel a rally by threatening violence it would have been front-page news for a week. Did you see this event on the network "news"? If so, how often?

Although I'm not a Trump fan, when the mob can force the other side's leading candidate to cancel a planned political rally, freedom of speech is dead. This is the "heckler's veto" on steroids. We've seen it before: Germany in 1932, with organized street fighters seeking to intimidate opponents and control the debate so their side could be heard and the other side shut down.

The announcement the billionaire businessman would postpone the rally
led a large portion of the crowd inside the University of Illinois at
Chicago Pavilion to break out into raucous cheers. Many rushed onto the
floor, jumping up and down with their arms up in the air.

"Trump represents everything America is not and everything Chicago is
not," said Kamran Siddiqui, 20, a student at the school who was among
those celebrating. "We came in here and we wanted to shut this down.
Because this is a great city and we don't want to let that person in
here."

Some supporters of the Republican front-runner started chanting "We
want Trump! We want Trump!" in response to the celebrations, and there
were some isolated physical confrontations between members of the crowd.
Chicago police said five people were arrested.

As Trump attempts to unify a fractured Republican Party ahead of next
week's slate of winner-take-all primary elections, the confrontations
between his legion of loyal supporters and protesters who accuse him of
stoking racial hatred have become increasingly contentious, underscoring
concerns about the divisive nature of his candidacy.
A North Carolina man was arrested after video footage showed him
punching an African-American protester being led out of a Trump rally in
that state on Wednesday. At that event, Trump recalled a past protester
as "a real bad dude."

"He was a rough guy, and he was punching. And we had some people —
some rough guys like we have right in here — and they started punching
back," Trump said. "It was a beautiful thing."

At Trump's rally earlier Friday in St. Louis he was repeatedly
interrupted by protesters. Police there charged nearly three dozen
people with general peace disturbance and one person with assault.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, second in delegates to Trump in the GOP race,
said late Friday that the billionaire has created "an environment that
encourages this sort of nasty discourse."

"When the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence,
to punch people in the face, the predictable consequence of that is that
is escalates," Cruz said. "Today is unlikely to be the last such
incidence."

Wait, it gets better (or worse, depending on your point of view): Bloggers have found tweets from MoveOn.org bragging about the cancellation and thanking all their supporters for doing it.

If this story doesn't strike you as a big deal just go outside and play. If you do understand the significance, remember where you were the day you heard about it.

To say this is a life-changing event is no understatement. The lines have been drawn. By MoveOn and their lackeys.

This abomination might possibly have been turned into a lesson on the absolute necessity for tolerance and civility and the need for civil discourse...if the emperor--the unquestioned leader of the mob--had quickly and unambiguously and forcefully appeared on TV and told the mob's rock-throwers that their behavior was totally out of bounds. But of course he hasn't. And if he doesn't do it right away the mob will get the clear message that he's really just kidding. Let's see what happens.

Update: As far as I know the emperor never said a word against the mob action.

Your emperor fans the flames of racial animosity again

For years now the Democratic party has loudly argued that any efforts to confirm that people wanting to vote are who they say they are--"voter ID laws"--are really intended to make it harder for minorities to vote--thus presumably to reduce minority voting.

Not surprisingly, this claim generates huge support among minorities.

So logically, Democrats should bitch about having to show an ID to fly on the airlines, or to open a bank account, or to get welfare or food stamps. And of course you've heard about all those protests, right?

Wait, you say you haven't heard of any such protests?

Wow, that's...odd.

You'd think that any rational adult would see the that claims that voter-ID laws unfairly harm minorities--let alone that this is their intent--is bullshit.

Wait, my bad: What he actually said was "We’re the only advanced democracy in the world that makes it harder for people to vote."

He then went on to claim that the U.S.

...systematically put[s] up barriers and make[s] it as hard as possible for our citizens to vote, and it is much easier to order pizza or a trip than it is for you to exercise the single most important task in a democracy, and that is for you to select who’s going to represent you in government.

Yeah baby...the great uniter. Uh-huh. Don't know which is worse: if he's just saying this to fan racial conflict or if he actually believes it.

Monday, March 7

Is there a correlation between self-discipline/delayed gratification and success?

Psychologists (Walter Mischel and others) wondered whether a person's ability to delay gratification --an indication of self-discipline--gave people better life outcomes. So they devised experiment in which a child was seated in front of a plate with a food treat, and told that if he or she didn't eat the treat until the experimenter returned after a short time, they'd get two treats.

Predictably, some kids ate the single treat and others held out for the delayed reward.

Mischel then followed the participants for a number of years afterwards.
And he found--hold on to your hats--that there was a strong correlation between self-discipline/impulse control and a large number of
other success factors: SAT scores, educational
attainment, fitness (measured by body mass index) and several other life measures.

So kids who have more self-control tend to be more
successful in life than those who don't? Wow, who could've predicted that?

What the experiments didn't investigate was how some kids learned that delaying gratification could have benefits. Were they taught by parents, did they learn by watching successful parents, or was it a genetic trait? The answers would seem to have a huge impact on the future of the country.

Of course successful parents are far more likely to understand the benefits of working hard now to achieve a valuable goal later--delayed gratification, self-control. It's worth asking whether parents with problem kids both recognize the connection and teach it to their kids. Intuitively it would seem that a substantial fraction of parents don't recognize this connection.

Kinda' like all parents should teach their kids not to steal or shoot people for Air Jordans. Unfortunately far too many parents don't seem to make the connection.

About Me

Ex-AF pilot. While airliners are very safe, flying a single-pilot jet can be extremely demanding, especially in bad weather. It's a *huge* tribute to engineers that today's commercial jetliners are so amazingly safe!